Earlier this week, Microsoft's Office 365 cloud-based office software suite suffered from some downtime along with its SkyDrive cloud services. The amount of downtime was over three hours and later Microsoft released a brief statement blaming the issues on "a networking issue affecting customers of some Microsoft services hosted out of one of our North American data centers." Even though the downtime was relatively brief, ZDNet is reporting that Microsoft has sent a letter to its Office 365 customers that it will be issuing "a credit equal to 25 percent of your monthly invoice." The actual credit will appear on a customer's future invoice, according to Microsoft's statement, but could take as many as 90 days to actually appear as a credit.

Microsoft's letter also repeated its previous statement, saying that the Office 365 downtime was due to an issue at one of its data centers. However it did add, "The data center’s networking facilities have been remediated and we are investigating the root cause." Microsoft also said, "We continue to monitor the overall network very closely to maintain high levels of service to customers."

Office 365 launched in June and represents Microsoft's biggest effort yet at offering services via cloud computing. Microsoft, especially its CEO Steve Ballmer, have talked in the past about how Microsoft will be moving more and more towards cloud computing in the future. Hopefully this minor glitch in both Office 365 and Skydrive won't scare off customers from Microsoft's cloud plans.